Amityville: An Origin Story (2023): Season 1, Episode 2 - The Crime - full transcript

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[eerie music]

[mellow jazz music]

[announcer] This is suburbia,

America's newest lifestyle.

Home to more than half
the nation's population.

America has a lot to learn
about this new lifestyle

called suburbia,

this booming new phenomenon

that is happening across
the breadth of our land.

One place to look for
some of the answers

is to America's first
and largest suburb,



Long Island, USA.

[gentle acoustic guitar music]

[Tommy] Amityville's
an old town,

and it was one of the
major towns, you know.

There was bootlegging
in the '30s and '40s.

That's pretty much what
Amityville was known for.

I mean, Al Capone lived there.

He had a house down
there on the water.

And my family
moved from Brooklyn

out to Long Island in 1952.

It was after the war,
when everybody was

migrating out of the
city onto the Island.

And I grew up there
in Amityville.

[Hit Crew Big
Band's "High Hopes"]



[singers] ♪ Next
time you're found

♪ With your chin
On the ground ♪

[Tommy] A few years
later, a family I knew

called the DeFeos also moved
from Brooklyn to Amityville.

They bought a house
on 112 Ocean Avenue.

In the front yard,

which would be the
side that the windows,

the famous windows,

they had a sign with a pole,

and it looked like a
big, white shingle,

but it was a piece of wood.

And it said in black
letters, "High hopes."

[singers] ♪ High hopes
He's got high hopes ♪

♪ He's got...

[Tommy] I took it as
being cool, you know?

Like, who does that? Why
are you doing it, you know?

You know, for... hey,
they must have high hopes.

And I also took it as, like,
wherever they moved from,

maybe they were starting
over, and this was

gonna be the new thing,
and it was a good thing.

It was a good sign, to me.

[singers] ♪ Oops, there goes
Another problem, kerplop ♪

♪ Kerplop

But after what happened,
I kinda wondered

why it was "high hopes."

I don't know.

[eerie synth music]

♪

♪

[crickets chirping]

[screaming, explosions on TV]

[muffled chatter on TV]

- [channel clicks]
- [static droning]

[eerie tone]

♪

[gunshots]

[dogs barking]

[gunshots continue]

[gunshot]

[door opens]

[gunshot]

[dogs barking]

[ominous music]

♪

[sirens wailing in distance]

[creaking]

[crowd chattering]

[indistinct radio chatter]

[Joel] I was the first
reporter on the scene.

Not because of any
miracle or because

I'm any magical person.

I lived the closest.

And we get there, and
there's a crowd of people.

And you could see police cars

and emergency vehicles,
lights flashing.

And I just asked,
"What's happening?"

They said, "A whole
family has been murdered."

I said, "Oh, my God."

[tense music]

♪

It was a very surreal scene.

It almost was like you
were in some kind of

science fiction horror movie,

and everybody was very quiet.

People were dead
silent, watching.

And as I'm standing
there, dear God,

I see them bringing out
one of the dead children.

They accidentally dropped him.

They dropped him on the ground.

And when they put
him back on the tarp,

before they covered him
again, for a moment,

you could see the bullet hole.

People all went... [gasps]

all gasped, because it
was just heartbreaking.

[Patrick] What can I
tell you about the case?

I can tell you that
we have six bodies.

We know that.

They were found last night
in bed, shot and killed.

[reporter 1] Do these
people appear to have

been shot at very close range?

[Patrick] They have been shot,

and I would say it had
to be at close range

because you can't get at a
long range within a house.

[reporter 2] Chief,
how unusual is it

to have six members of a family

on two separate floors killed,

and nobody moving
from their bed?

It's not the experience that
I've ever had in that line.

[Joel] And so I speak
to some kids who lived,

you know, in the
neighborhood, right around.

I said, "Listen, my
name is Joel Martin."

"I'm the news director
at BAB here in Babylon."

"BAB?" He said, "Are
you the crazy guy

who does the shows about
the flying saucers?"

I swear that was
the conversation.

I said, "Yeah."

Sure as heck, they tell
me the dog started to bark

between 3:00 and 3:30 sometime.

They have a hound or
one of those dogs that

they don't bark so
much as they bay.

It was baying.

[imitates baying dog] Crying.

Six members of the
DeFeo family are killed.

I said, "So everybody
in the whole family?"

"Oh, well, there's one...
One person left alive."

I said, "Who's that?"

"Ronnie... Ronnie DeFeo,
the sole surviving son."

Ronald is being safeguarded
by Suffolk County Police

- at this time.
- [reporter 1] Why safeguarded?

Why? Because there's six
members of the family dead,

and we don't know why,

and he's the sole
remaining member.

Is he also a suspect?

[Patrick] He's not a
suspect at this time.

[reporter 2] And
the dog was found

in the basement of this house?

Not in the basement,
but in the house.

- [reporter 2] Alive?
- Yes, he's still alive.

And I don't know... Where
is the dog at this time,

do you know?

[reporter 3] Anybody know
the name of the dog too?

No, I don't.

[interviewer] Mrs. Gangitano,
you knew the DeFeo family.

What sort of people were they?

I think they were
just very sweet,

very religious people,
very family-minded people.

And that's about
all I could say.

Very good, very
generous, this type.

Very close with their children.

[interviewer] How was
their relationship

with the oldest boy, Ron?

[Gloria] The phone rang.

We were having
supper or finishing.

For some reason, I said, "I
wonder what's wrong now?"

I don't know why.

And someone said all
the DeFeos were killed,

or were gone.

And I thought, "Oh, was there
an explosion in the house?"

What could I think of
that the whole family...

And then they told me,
"No, they were shot."

And then I think
I said, "Butchy."

[eerie music]

♪

[interviewer] What kind
of a guy was Ron DeFeo?

He didn't look for
trouble, you know?

He was that type of
fellow, you know?

He was all right.

Like, he seemed a nice
guy to me, you know?

[indistinct chatter]

[Tommy] It was November
13th, 1974, in Henry's,

was the last time I saw him.

We were playing craps
on the pool table.

He was in and out three
or four different times,

which was totally
normal for him.

And, um, Ronnie had
come back to the bar

and said that, "The mob
just killed my father."

I was thinking, this poor guy.

Especially, you know,
being with him that day,

you know, seeing
him all day long.

Then I had gone home,

and then I saw it on the
news later that night.

I was stunned.

It wasn't real.

It was not real.

[Gloria] Ronnie Sr.
Was a very caring,

very protective father,

and he wanted to have
his wife admire him.

And Louise was sweet.

And the kids were adorable.

And I just think it's
just a heartbreaking,

unbelievable situation.

♪

[Paula] My sister and I came
home from school that day,

got off the school
bus, came home.

I probably was watching
Dark Shadows on television.

And then the 5
o'clock news came on,

and I remember when we saw it.

I said, "Mom, Mom, there
was a murder in Amityville."

And then when we saw the whole
thing unfolding, and then

every day when we
got home from school,

we would rush home to
see what was on the news,

because there was no
other way to find out.

My mom, she volunteered at
the church in various ways,

and so she would talk
to the other mothers

and they would try to
find out from the police

what was happening.

So that was how we all
found out what was going on.

The rumors were so crazy.

You know, "I bet
it was the mafia."

You know, there was all
this kind of speculation.

There was a sense of tension.

I remember thinking at the time,

"Well, what family is
left to be with them

when they go to the cemetery?"

[somber music]

♪

I just remember just the
warmth whenever I walked in,

and they had their
portraits up on the wall

going up the stairs.

There was Allison, and
then there was Dawn.

And then there was
Marc and John Matthew.

Her mother, Louise...

and Ronnie with his dad.

Dawn was in my class
in eighth grade.

She really had a special
place in my heart.

I had a instance where I fell
down the stairs in the school,

and she was the only
person that came to my aid.

So we became fast friends.

♪

[church bells chiming]

[Paula] The day
of the funeral,

we were sitting
in the choir loft.

You could hear a pin drop.

I mean, there was not
a sound in the place.

There was no murmuring.

It was just absolute silence.

The doors open, and then
they bring in six coffins.

[bells ringing]

And it's just this procession...

One after the other
after the other.

And I remember it
was the first time

that I actually thought,

"Dawn is in one
of those boxes."

Somebody that I knew.

It was... there was
something... Again,

it was so, um, unreal to watch.

[Carol] I do remember

when they were all
in their caskets,

and my parents had to
basically carry me through.

It was just devastating.

[bell ringing]

♪

When they had the wake,

they had these six coffins open,

and some of them
were, like, deformed.

Because... like, my father said,
"I don't recognize Louise,"

you know?

Such a sad time.

Like, it was unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

Mrs. DeFeo's father
was at the wake

with a gun,

'cause he maybe was
involved in something

and didn't know if
anyone was gonna come.

I don't know what he expected.

[church bells tolling]

[Carol] And I had...
For a very long time,

I was having dreams that
they were still alive.

And that was really strange,

because I would dream
that I would see

the kids outside of the house.

[camera shutter clicks]

And then I would follow
them into the house,

and the mother and
father were there, alive.

And I'm like,
"What's going on?"

"You guys shouldn't be here."

And they were like, "Well,
it was just a way to get

Ronnie committed, you know?"

"It was a ruse."

"You know, it was
a fake murder."

I mean, I think it was my mind

trying to make it not real.

I had that dream
quite a few times.

It's been a few years, though.

[Ronnie] I would never
fight with my father,

because I had no win, you know?

I would run. He would
do all the hitting.

I would run.

I never raised my
hands at my father.

He was the best
friend I ever had.

No matter what I did,

he was always there
for me to bail me out.

Mr. DeFeo's physical size

and his manner
matched perfectly.

I remember asking my mother,

"Is Mr. DeFeo... Is
he in the mafia?"

You watch movies,
you're aware of things.

And, you know, my mother said,

"I don't... I don't
know, I don't know."

He was definitely a presence
when he stepped into a space,

like a made guy.

He looked like a
big, imposing guy,

and Ronnie did not.

Mr. DeFeo, he worked at the
Buick dealer in Brooklyn.

[tense music]

The grandfather owned it.

Ronnie, he worked
with his family,

he's making a lot of money.

Ronnie and his dad were
at a constant battle

between each other.

Because Ronnie wanted to do
whatever he wanted to do.

He didn't think there
was any rules for him.

He was a wise-ass.

He didn't listen. He
didn't play by the rules.

You know, he did what he wanted,

went where he wanted,
came home when he wanted.

[Laura] He had
attempted, Ronnie Jr.,

to shoot his father
a year before.

He claimed it was when he saw
his father hitting his mother,

and he grabbed a
gun and put the gun

to his father's temple,

but it jammed in the chamber.

After that, Big Ronnie
got religion in a big way.

He felt it was a miracle.

His life had been spared.

[church choir singing]

♪

[eerie music]

[Ronnie] My mother and me,
we were very, very close.

Me and my two sisters,
we got along excellently.

My two younger
brothers, Marc and John,

we were very close,
too, you know.

We used to go fishing.

We were really a close
family, you know?

It's a shame what happened,
but it happened, you know?

[Carol] Ronnie... Butch...

He was crazy man.

Dawn would tell me from time
to time about his drugs,

about his
over-excessive drinking.

She would witness,
you know, the fights

between her father and Ronnie.

I never saw him work
hard a day in his life.

He was just living off the folks

and the grandparents.

It was well known
that Michael Brigante,

the grandfather, bought
the house for them.

But Dawn was very
private about it.

The DeFeos were involved
in mob activity,

but it was... you know,

you didn't really talk about it.

They were very guarded.

That's not something
you play with.

I don't wanna know nothing.

The least you know,
the better off you are.

[tense music]

[indistinct chatter]

[reporter] Today, police
combed the DeFeos'

handsome three-story
house for clues

while divers explored the
backyard swimming pool

for the still unfound
murder weapon.

Police have been
questioning the son, Ronald.

Investigators say,
without explanation,

that they now feel young
DeFeo was in the house

at the time of the murders.

[Dennis] I was called
in the next morning

to interview Ronald DeFeo.

He continued to
change his story.

At that time, I had
investigated about 50

other murder cases, and
in talking to DeFeo,

it was obvious that
he was deceiving us.

[dramatic music]

[Ronnie] I got
high. I used heroin.

I was using a lot
of heroin back then.

I was getting blackouts
but didn't realize it.

I went upstairs,
and what happened...

It was like a nightmare.

I'm looking at my mother and
father dead, and my sister.

I said, "My God."
I got scared.

I ran out of the house,
jumped in my car,

ran down the street,
got my friends,

and came back to the house.

They all went in the
house. I stood outside it.

♪

[Dennis] As a suspect,
initially he denied

any involvement in the case.

But as we continued
to talk to him,

he displayed angry
feelings toward his parents

and toward his family
and his family situation.

He told us that when he
saw his brother get shot,

he could see the leg twitching.

And it was at that
point that we realized

that he was definitely
at the scene of the crime

and finally did admit

that he hated his
mother and father.

In fact, when we started
to interrogate him,

he told us that he
had thrown the gun

in the Great South Bay.

And with the assistance
of the Marine Division,

they recovered
the murder weapon,

a 0.35 caliber Marlin.

[gun clicks]

[radio chatter]

[gun clicks]

And he also told us he
buried some bloody clothing

in a street sewer in Queens
County in New York City,

that only the killer would
have known where it was.

♪

We recovered that
bloody evidence.

[camera shutter clicking]

[distant sirens wailing]

Eventually, he admitted to
killing his two brothers,

two sisters, and his parents.

[reporter] Police in
Suffolk County, New York,

have charged 23-year-old
Ronald DeFeo Jr.

With the execution-style
murders of his parents,

two brothers, and two sisters.

The bodies were
discovered Wednesday night

at the family home in
Amityville, Long Island.

[Carol] I remember seeing
it in the newspaper

that he was charged.

I wasn't surprised.

I didn't believe it.

I mean, two weeks before that,

he was telling me how proud
he was of his younger brother

making the Massapequa
Mustangs football team.

And then you go
shoot him in his back

while he's sleeping in a bed?

It just seemed impossible.

Why would Ronnie
confess to that?

There's only a couple
possibilities in your mind...

That he's scared to death,

or the cops beat it out of him,

or he was threatened.

That's the only three
I can come up with.

[Ronnie] I was really, uh...

Really, really out of
it, mentally out of it.

I remember the
lever on the rifle.

I hit the lever on the rifle.

A live round of ammunition
jumped out of the rifle...

You know, ejected
from the rifle.

And when it ejected, you
know, another one went in.

I shot her... I thought I
had shot her in the neck,

but I had shot her in the head.

And then when I realized
what I did, you know,

I said, "My God," you know?

I mean, it happened so fast.

I never even knew what I did.

[gunshots]

[gunshot]

[gunshots continue]

[dramatic music]

[reporter] ...one major
question about this crime

which still hasn't
been answered:

the question of motive.

It's reported that
Ronald DeFeo Jr. stood

to gain about $200,000
in life insurance

from the death of his family.

Police say they're not ruling
that out as a possibility.

No doubt, it's one
of the questions

which will be considered by
the grand jury this week.

In Amityville, Long Island,
Phil Barno, News Center 4.

[Laura] Michael Brigante Sr.,
Ronnie's maternal grandfather,

was a very emotional-type man,

and the Brooklyn DA's
office was investigating

the suspected ties
to Joe Colombo

that the Brigante family had.

They were being bugged.

There were tapes.

What you heard on the tapes

was Michael Brigante Sr. saying,

"What are we gonna do?"

"If that kid gets off,

if he's acquitted,
we got problems."

"He knows too much
about what's going on

in our business."

After the verdict,
at the trials,

he embraced his
grandson, kissed him,

spoke to him in
Italian and English.

I think this was more a case of,

keep your friends close
and your enemies closer.

[Herman] On your left,
you have the DeFeo house,

where the six murders took
place in November '74.

And of course, as
you know, I got

involved in this murder case.

[Michael] My father
was Herman Henry Race.

He became a police officer,
detective, sergeant.

Did you ever hear the
expression "crime pays"?

Pays very well.

So he became a
private investigator,

did a lot of criminal work.

One of the cases he
got involved with

was with the Colombo family.

Michael Brigante, who is
the grandfather, the father

of the deceased Louise DeFeo,

personally asked me to conduct
an investigation to determine

what really took place on
the night of the murders.

"Where were you?"

"What's the actual
cause of this?"

"See... if you can, find
out what the motive was."

And that's what Mike
Brigante was trying to do.

One person killing
your entire family?

It wasn't normal.

There's a time frame involved.

Did he have clarity
in what he was doing?

I think he did.

He went from room to room

and executed his entire family.

Here, you have people spread
out in different rooms

on different floors.

It's not one person.

It's impossible to do
this all by yourself.

I mean, even with a
split personality,

you can't be on two
different floors.

Someone had to help him.

The question is, is who?

[William] You're talking about
the crime of the century,

as far as I'm concerned.

I have no explanation why Ronnie

killed his whole family,
if at all he did.

How a boy who loved his mother,

who adored and idolized
his two younger brothers,

could possibly do such
a thing, you know,

to me, it was an
act of insanity.

♪

[Ellen] I'm Ellen Stark,
and I'm the daughter

of Judge Thomas Stark,
who was the judge

in the DeFeo murder trial.

It just really
caught my attention

when he talked about the
manner of people being killed.

I do remember him talking about
DeFeo going from room to room

and shooting everybody.

I mean, that sort of
stuck in my memory.

That was just horrifying,
that an entire family

had been murdered.

The DeFeo trial took
place in the fall of 1975.

My father thought it
was a strong legal team

on both sides.

William Weber was

a very accomplished
defense lawyer,

and Gerry Sullivan was an
accomplished prosecutor,

so I think my father had
respect for both lawyers.

Ronnie DeFeo, in my
view, is evil incarnate.

Um...

prosecuted cases for ten years,

and many murderers among them.

There has never been,
in my experience,

and from what I know,

certainly in the
metropolitan New York area,

the history of crime
in recent years,

there has never been
anybody to achieve

the dimensions of
evil as Ronnie DeFeo.

You're talking about eight
expertly-placed bullets

by an individual who has been
described by an optometrist

as being almost legally blind.

About halfway through
his direct examination

his attorney,
Mr. Weber, asked him

point blank, "Ronnie, did
you kill your father?"

And Ronnie answered, "Yes,
sir, I killed them all."

"And I killed them before
they could kill me."

♪

There were two psychiatrists,
both of whom examined DeFeo.

One was for the prosecution,
one was for the defense,

and both psychiatrists
actually testified

that they believed
that Ronald DeFeo

had shot his entire family.

It was just a question of
the psychiatrists' opinions

on to what degree he
understood what he was doing.

The psychiatrist who
testified for the prosecution

was a man named
Dr. Harold Zolan,

and he argued that DeFeo had
an antisocial personality,

and that the fact that he
collected evidence afterwards

and went and threw it in
a storm drain in Brooklyn

was evidence that he
knew perfectly well

what he was doing.

Ronald DeFeo's
psychiatrist, Dr. Schwartz,

argued that he was...

I think he called it
paranoid psychosis.

His argument was that
the murder was actually

triggered by a movie

that Ronald DeFeo was
watching that night,

an old World War II
movie called Castle Keep.

[playing organ]

♪

I believe that he was
so psychotic at the time

of the murders that he was
not criminally responsible.

This is a young man
who, from all we know,

never really learned
to control his emotions

in a reasonable way.

He was filled with
murderous thoughts

and paranoid ideas that
he was meant to be killed.

And there came a
time in his life

when he felt that he
had to kill others,

lest he be killed.

[Thomas] He apparently,
right from the beginning,

decided to employ an
insanity defense upon trial.

And he started a
concerted action

in the jail to appear
that he was insane

and insisted that the
correction officers

write down in the log his
allegedly insane conduct.

Of course, within 15
minutes, they came in

and rendered their six
guilty as charged verdicts.

In your mind, you're trying
to unwind this puzzle.

It didn't make sense. A lot
of it didn't make sense.

[camera shutter clicks]

How does all these people sleep,

one person shot and murdered,
and no one wakes up?

I used to go deer hunting
with that same rifle.

Not the same
rifle... that rifle.

It's loud.

And I believe it only holds six.

So if you fire more than
six, you, as the suspect,

have to reload it.

[rifle chamber clicking]

On the side is where you
put the cartridge in,

and it goes into this tube.

So when you pull the lever down,

it ejects the shell casing.

You close the lever
and raise it up.

Another round goes
into the chamber.

[eerie music]

♪

It's a lever action.

It's not like a
pistol, where you can

just keep pulling the trigger.

You're shooting that
rifle inside of a house.

The echo effect is tremendous.

[gunshot echoing]

No one wakes up.

So what does that tell you?

It wasn't Ron Jr. by himself.

So you're taking time.

It's almost, and I say
almost, inconceivable

that the sounds
wouldn't wake somebody.

However, if somebody was
there to pacify the children

and say, "Go back to sleep"...

"Lie down on your stomach."

"I don't want to
see your face."

It probably happened that way,
that they did go back to sleep

until they, too,
met their demise.

Proving it is a whole
different ball game.

You can't, 'cause it
was never brought up.

Once they made the
arrest, the case was over.

[dark music]

♪

[Hans] Dr. Daniel Schwartz,

what do you feel is
the underlying cause

that made DeFeo
commit these crimes?

[Daniel] Uh, he grew
up as a violent man

in a house of violence.

Or do you think he
might be the recipient

of some extraordinary
influences in the house?

I don't know.

I have an open mind
about things like this.

I just don't know.

The questions in the DeFeo case

need more than
conventional explanations.

Perhaps Ronnie may have
acted under the influence

of unknown forces beyond his
control or understanding.

Six people died on Ocean Avenue.

Was Ronnie, in fact,
the seventh victim?

[beeping]

[suspenseful music]

My name is Hans Holzer.

I'm a parapsychologist,

but most people know
me as the Ghost Hunter.

And I'm about to take you along
on a tour of haunted places,

so get set to come
along on my ghost hunt.

And remember, friends,
this isn't fiction.

What you're about to see
and hear is the real thing.

♪

What did you see?

I saw a woman
standing in the aisle.

So I said to her, "Wait,
lady, turn the lights on."

"You'll fall."

And uh, I turned away and was
going to the light switch.

And when I turned to
look at her again,

she disappeared
right into thin air.

I understand you've also
heard some strange noises.

[Alexandra] My father,

famed ghost hunter
Dr. Hans Holzer,

was born in Vienna, Austria.

He became a skeptic
journalist on his own.

I think that we have to
relieve somebody here.

And this is something
from the past?

Oh, yes. Well past.

I mean, not yesterday
or... Or this century.

- Yes, yes.
- Going back.

- Another century.
- Another century.

And you feel it is
still lingering on

here in the atmosphere?

He started to report

on people's experiences

of odd occurrences
and happenings.

The first book he wrote was
called The Ghost Hunter.

When that book became
very successful,

that really was the
pinnacle moment for him,

and that became the work.

He published over 145 titles.

♪

Have you any tangible proof
of having seen a ghost?

I've developed a
photography technique

to take photographs
in haunted houses.

- [interviewer] You got 'em?
- Oh, I sure have 'em.

But I must tell you, my
film has been examined

before and after by experts,

and no artificial
light sources are used.

[interviewer] Where
is the ghost, though?

[Hans] On the left
side, and you can see

what looks like
transparent figures

of hooded monks.

- [scattered laughter]
- [interviewer] Ooh, boy.

I really think this is a subject

that should not
be made light of.

[Alexandra] My father
was a very serious man.

What happens with
spirit photography,

something is entering your frame

and clogging it up.

[Hans] What is strange
about this picture

is that there seems to
be a triple exposure

when only one was made by me.

[Alexandra] So we know
when there's a murder,

a trapped ghost will
step inside your frame.

For my father, it was important

because there's a
science to everything.

[Erik] Part of our
condition as human beings

is that there are
anomalous experiences,

whether we want to
acknowledge them or not.

They just keep on happening.

And what we see in the '70s,
paranormal investigators,

they all have good technology,
they're recording things.

I was... I was laughing at
a clown in a big red suit.

Uh, he was making me laugh.

He was very jolly.

And uh, he was holding these
three big, red balloons.

They approach it as
a kind of science,

because this idea that you
could connect with something

that would give you messages,

that's pretty fantastical
for a lot of people.

So then they turn to science
to prove the paranormal.

Is it truth or is it a hoax?

Even though it's very
powerful just as a story,

it has to be more than
that, more than just myth.

One might suppose that
in this modern age

dominated by the remarkable
accomplishments of science,

the ancient world of the
occult would be dying out.

Instead, many occult
beliefs and practices

seem to be thriving.

The Committee for the
Scientific Investigation

of Claims of the Paranormal.

It is made up of scientists,
writers, even magicians,

who are worried that too
many people these days

are believing in
too many things.

So if the doorbell rings in
the middle of the night tonight

and a ghost is standing
there, simply refer him

to the local paranormal
chapter and go back to bed.

When I think about the
Amityville murders,

what was so odd about this case

was that nobody heard
the guns go off.

If you go out to Long
Island, you see the houses,

they're kinda close
to each other,

especially on that street.

All the shots went,
so it would have been,

bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,

in the middle of the night.

No lights go on in the houses
on either side of them.

Nobody hears anything.

My father read about the
story in The New York Times,

and he wanted to know
what was going on there.

[tense music]

His theory was that in
a moment of possession,

no sound will travel beyond
the walls in that house.

♪

[static droning]

[muffled gunshots]

[muffled gunshots]

♪

He was given access not once
but twice to Ronald DeFeo.

He wanted to talk to
the murderer himself.

[Hans] I want you
to relax, Ronald.

Close your eyes and
listen to my voice

coming to you from a distance.

I want you to go
back in time now.

[tape scrolling]

[distorted voices]

You are just 20 years old.

Now, when you first moved
into 112 Ocean Avenue

in Amityville, did you
feel anything at all

about the atmosphere
in the house?

[Ronnie] Well, when I
first moved in, you know,

you start hearing noises and
different things at night.

[Hans] What did you hear?

[Ronnie] You thought that
somebody might have been

walking around, pipes banging.

All these, you know,
strange noises, you know.

[Hans] Did you tell
anyone about it?

[Ronnie] Yeah, they were
up walking around too,

the members of my family.

Everybody thought there
was somebody in there.

[Hans] And they didn't
see anything either?

[Ronnie] No.

Once in a while
you'd hear screaming,

but there wasn't
nobody screaming.

[Hans] Did you ever see any
object move by themselves?

[Ronnie] I never
saw anything move,

but there was things moved.

Who moved them, to
this day, I don't know.

[Hans] Did your
family members report

anything unusual
to you in that way?

[Ronnie] I recall my mother
or somebody at one time

said they saw something.

[Hans] She said she saw a ghost?

[Ronnie] No, that they felt
the devil was in the house.

[Gloria] None of the neighbors
associated with them.

They saw some crazy behavior.

Mr. DeFeo said he had a
hotline to St. Joseph.

The neighbors told me after,
he would run out in his shorts

and pray in front of the statue.

Who knows? I don't know.

[tense music]

♪

One time, we had
dinner at his house.

Mr. DeFeo asked us
if we knew which side

Jesus was stabbed on.

None of us could answer.

And he said, well, he knows

because he was at
the crucifixion.

[eerie choral music]

♪

Nobody was drugged.

Nobody heard any shots.

And to this day, all
the clever lawyers

and all the police officers
have no answer to this,

because they just aren't
qualified to understand it.

[Alexandra] My father's
experiences always were

through the mediums
and/or psychics

that he would work with.

They have the ability
to see, hear, feel,

to receive a lot of information,

which can be very
scary at times.

And it's handed
down by generations.

That's the Holzer method.

That's the combination
of the science

and then the
otherworldly, if you will.

Ethel Johnson-Meyers
was one of the mediums

he liked to work with.

She was actually
formerly an opera singer,

very quiet and frail.

Then her voice just
kind of, you know,

would just drop down an octave.

It's like a male
voice coming through.

She's like... [voice
deepens] "I'm feeling."

He brought Ethel to
the house in Amityville

at 112 Ocean Avenue,

and they started doing
a tour of the house.

How my father described it was,

even when they were driving
up towards the house,

she immediately felt a
very strong presence there.

They started to take
the Polaroid photos.

[projector whirring]

And something is entering frame

and clogging it up.

There's other Polaroid shots

where you'll see
the bullet holes.

Around the bullet hole is what
we call, like, a halo glow,

which is this residual energy
that's surrounding them,

and what my father believed was,

your spirit energy is
manifesting, showing you,

in this moment,
we're still here.

There's no botching
it. There's no fakery.

It's... it's heartbreaking,
'cause we know

what those bullets did.

Ethel went into a trance,

so she allows whoever
or whatever is there

to take over her body.

Her throat would close up
and she would be choking,

because, you know,
the spirit was trying

to enter her to communicate.

My father really started to pull

a picture of an angry man

from the past who
had certain beliefs

and structures that this
was their land they live on.

That was very specific,

because we were now
getting some information

as to why he was there.

[eerie music]

♪

[Alexandra] Could he
have possibly influenced

somebody like Ronald DeFeo
out of anger and spite?

And um, my father believed so.

The only, uh, story I've ever
heard about any Indian being

buried in that area
was south of the house

that you're discussing,

and it was reporting

that they had
discovered the skeleton

of an Indian chief.

Um, indicated that was a chief

because he was in a
standing position.

[Hans] And what happened
to the skeleton?

[Seth] I don't know.

There's a lot to be said
about bad happenings on land.

So we have a home or a barn
and things keep happening,

somebody keeps dying,
or there's a murder,

or death is all around us.

There's something
negative going on there.

And I refer to it like
a vortex or a portal

of negative energies that
are coming in and out

and wreaking havoc in that area.

♪

[birds squawking]

[Hans] I discovered around
the turn of the century,

around 1900, a skeleton of
an Indian chief on a horse

had partially been exposed
during a rainstorm.

And the skeleton's head
had been broken off

by a youngster who then
played football with it,

and that is when all
the trouble started.

He felt that the environment

that Ronnie DeFeo
was growing up in,

they move into this house,

the abuse that was going on,

it made them prime
suspects to be taken over

by this angry Indian chief.

The area developed
over the years.

You know, 100 years
later, it's a booming

boating, fishing town.

[ominous music]

You know, if you put
in the negative energy

of such a dysfunctional family
like the DeFeos, for instance,

yes, these things can happen.

But it's from an... Almost
like an ancient energy,

if you will.

Like an ancient evil.

[eerie voices echoing]

[Alexandra] To me, I look
at it more like a murder.

And then the aftermath is

the lingering energies
that were there

and whoever stayed around,

unfortunately.

[Paula] There was a
moment there in the '70s,

early to mid '70s, where
there was an awareness

of Native American culture.

I remember when a group
of Indigenous people went

and they occupied Alcatraz
claiming, you know,

"This is our territory."

No, we're here to stay.

We're, uh... We're
with that conviction.

We're gonna stick with it.

And there was, like, this
moment of acknowledging

what had happened to
the Indigenous people,

particularly on Long Island.

[rhythmic drumming]

They were killed off,
run off the land.

All of Long Island is
an Indian burial ground.

But I just felt that any
of this sort of awareness

gave somebody the idea,
"Oh, Indian burial ground."

"You know, that
could be a story."

"That's creepy too,"
and that's something

that got thrown into the
mix when they were talking

about all the possible reasons
why the house was haunted.

My father had some big pair
of balls, I gotta tell you.

He didn't care. He
said what he said

because it was the truth,
and people don't like people

that speak the truth.

My husband said, "Do you
wanna buy the house?"

A boathouse, a pool...
It was, like, $55,000.

I said, "With all those
people murdered? No."

I don't wanna live in that
house with those memories.

[Paula] I wouldn't
wanna live there,

you know, after what happened.

And that was my feeling too.

Like, who would
want to live there?

And then kinda you forgot
about it until we heard the...

The story about the...
The Lutz family moving in.

Ronnie had just been
convicted when the story broke

with George and Kathy Lutz

moving into and out of
the house in 28 days.

Everybody started
calling William Weber.

Mr. Weber says, "Listen,
these people named

the Lutzes bought your house."

"You do know them
through somebody else."

I said, "Oh, yeah?"

"And, uh, we can use
them to make money."

I said, "What are
you talking about?"

And that's how the haunted
house nonsense started.

[singer] ♪ La, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la ♪

♪ La, la, la, la,
la La, la, la ♪

♪ I thought a little
'Bout you last night ♪

♪ I thought a little
'Bout you yesterday ♪

♪ I think a little
'Bout you every day ♪

♪ And it works out all right

♪ La, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la ♪

♪ La, la, la, la,
la La, la, la ♪

♪ La, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la ♪

♪ La, la, la, la,
la La, la, la ♪

♪ I had a little bit
Too much to drink ♪

♪ When I woke up It
really made me think ♪

♪ It seems you're in
Everything I say ♪

♪ And I think that's okay

♪ And I want you to stay

♪ And I think you're okay

[eerie music droning]